ACCLIMATIZATION OP FISH IN THE PACIFIC STATES. 
467 
EXTENT OF THE TRADE IN EASTERN OYSTERS. 
The business of planting eastern oysters in San Francisco Bay, and of taking 
them up for market when they have attained sufficient size, is one of the most impor- 
tant branches of the fisheries on the Pacific Coast. In 1888 the quantity taken from 
beds in San Francisco Bay and sold was 117,000 bushels, and the output has increased 
annually since that time. Over 100 persons are employed, and nearly $300,000 is 
invested in vessels, shore property, cash capital, and oyster-grounds. 
The inquiries of Mr. W. A. Wilcox, agent of the United States Fish Commission, 
have shown the quantity and value of the yield of eastern oysters from 1888 to 1892 
inclusive to have been as follows, the figures for the last four years named being 
extracted from Mr. Wilcox’s paper* in the Report of the United States Fish Commis- 
sion for 1893 : 
Years. 
Bushels. 
Value. 
1888 
117,000 
120, 000 
125, 000 
130, 000 
146, 000 
$465, 375 | 
480. 000 [ 
500, 000 
520. 000 1 
584, 000 
| 1889 
1890 
1891 
1892 
THE SOFT CLAM. 
The existence of the soft clam or long clam ( Mya arenaria) of the Atlantic Coast on 
the shores of California was first suggested in 1871, when Dr. W. Newcomb described 
it from San Francisco Bay as a new species under the name Mya hemphillii , recog- 
nizing that it was distinct from the native Mya of the Puget Sound region. It is 
interesting to observe that it is also found on the coast of Japan. 
In a paper entitled u Mya arenaria in San Francisco Bay,”f by Dr. R. E. C. 
Stearns, it was shown that since 1874 this clam had become abundant along the 
eastern side of San Francisco Bay, although it was not known north of that bay; 
The author had, however, received specimens from Santa Cruz, on Monterey Bay, 72 
miles south of the Golden Gate. 
In discussing the origin of the clam in San Francisco Bay, Dr. Stearns gives the 
opinion that the original mollusks were accidentally taken to the Pacific Coast with 
carloads of eastern oysters destined for planting near San Francisco. He writes as 
follows on this point : 
From whence came the seed which has produced the abundance of this species which has spread 
and is now spreading rapidly along the shores of San Francisco Bay? 
Examine the ancient shell heaps and mounds found hereabout, and one may lind the thin broken 
valves of the Macomas, but not a fragment of the shell of Mi/ a. One may find the shells of the native 
Haliotis and Olivella and the beads and money or ornaments made from them ; the bones of the 
common California deer, of the whales, and perhaps other animals, all of which are still to be found 
in the neighborhood or not many miles away, but not a piece of Mya. The ancient clam-diggers, 
whose kitchen middens are met with in many places on the Alameda and other shores of the bay, whose 
skeletons and implements are sometimes exhumed or discovered, had “passed over to the majority” 
*The Fisheries of the Pacific Coast, 166 pages, 14 plates. 
tAmerican Naturalist, xv, 1881. 
